Shoulda, coulda ...

When the controversy first arose about the legality of two trustees-elect participating on the school board earlier this year (February? maybe January?), the Board should have appointed a committee to investigate and consider what was being challenged.

Did it? Not according to any action officially taken.

What should have been the composition of such a committee? Obviously, the two persons challenged should not have been on the committee. A Committee of three might have been appropriate, with at least one of them being an officer of the board.

Should the superintendent have been on the committee?

As the senior staff employee of the District and one who must work closely with the Board Chair, the superintendent should not have been designated to be on the committee. This would have protected him and helped separate his role, which was to support the Board Chair, whoever the person was.

Should one or more members of the public have been on the committee?

Perhaps one or more of the several members of the public who were complaining should have be invited to be part of such a committee. After all, they were the ones waving the flag.

Such a committee would have had to study the laws and should have obtained the advice of the legal counsel for the school district. Then the committee would have brought its findings to the full board.

And then the Board should have announced the committee's findings and stated what action it would take, if any.

At least one board member seemed to agree with the challenges that were being raised. When it came time to sign a Certificate of Incumbency and a Signature and No-Litigation Certification in connection with documents for the sale of $26,000,000 Bond Anticipation Notes, that board member's concerns were so great that she consulted with her private attorney to determine what risk, if any, there was for personal or civil liability, should she sign the documents as Board Secretary.

As a result of that consultation, she refused to sign the documents and resigned as Board Secretary on April 26, 2019.

At the school board meeting on April 30, 2019, her resignation was announced, and she explained her reasons at length. The Board was in a pickle, because it needed a Secretary to sign the documents, including the two special certifications. Board Trustee James Shadd was nominated, accepted the nomination and was elected by the Board to the office of Secretary, to complete the Secretary's term-of-office to June 30, 2019. That same night he signed the bond documents as Secretary.

Will he someday regret the "honor" of serving as successor Secretary? Will he wish he had taken time to consider exactly why the previous Secretary had resigned? Has he given thought since April 30th to the possible effect of signing a document that stated Mrs. McKie was the Board Chair and that her term of office was July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019?

When the District and the Board finally have to admit that, after all this time (since November 6, 2018), Mrs. McKie has been a trustee-elect (only) and not a Trustee, making the Certificate of Incumbency false, how will this reflect on those who signed it?

Most on the Board must hope this issue will just go away.

The Board or the District has never tried to explain to me why they are right and I'm wrong. For my part, I don't care about being "right". I do care about what is right.

Board can't control who sits on Board?

At the school board meeting on July 23, 2019, I made the following comments during the Public Participation segment of the meeting. These comments can be watched and heard on the YouTube recording of the meeting, starting at 9:57 on the meeting timer.

I was cautioned twice by the Board Chair; both times were done so politely, professionally and respectfully.

First, my comments:

"Over the past four months I have many conversations with law enforcement and other agencies regarding the problems that I have called to the attention of the Board.

"Among my contacts have been the Richland County Sheriff’s Department, the South Carolina Ethics Commission, the Attorney General, SLED, the South Carolina Dept. of Education, the Governor’s Office, my State Senator and my State Representative, the School Boards Association, and others.

"In a March meeting at the Sheriff’s Department, a sergeant-investigator asked me if I wanted Mrs. McKie and Ms. Holmes “kicked off the board” (his words). I answered that I did not. All I wanted was for them to take the oath of office and become legal members of the board.

"I still do.

** First caution occurred here. 

"The purpose of my comments tonight is to request a meeting with the Board Chair and the attorney for the School District to discuss two matters.

1.     1. Why the District believes that two trustees-elect, who did not legally take the oath of office, are allowed to sit on the Board, and

     ** Second caution occurred here.

2.     2. Whether the District has engaged in securities fraud because of erroneous, misleading and incomplete information in the bond documents for the $26,000,000 sale of Bond Anticipation Notes on April 11 of this year.

"I will contact Mr. Manning to arrange the meeting."

Regarding the first caution, I disagree that a member of the public use a board member's name in Public Participation or cannot repeat a comment about two board members made by a law-enforcement officer. The important part is that I disagreed with that law-enforcement officer.

Regarding the second caution, I disagree that the School Board does not have jurisdiction over who sits at the Board. It's not a matter of ethics; it's a matter of legality. I was told that the Board does not have direct control over whether a person is illegally on the Board. 

If the Board doesn't have control over who sits on it, why couldn't anyone just show up at a meeting and take a seat in one of the nice chairs at the front of the room?

Mrs. McKie and Ms. Holmes have never legally taken the oath of office and cannot be on the Board officially, until they do. On December 4, 2018 they first became eligible to take the oath of office, because that is the date they filed their Statement of Economic Interests Reports. The law (S.C. Code of Laws §8-13-1110(A)) is clear.

Next Board Meeting - Tuesday, August 6

Richland 2 School Board meetings are normally on the second and fourth Tuesdays.

There will be a Special-Called Board Meeting on Tuesday, August 6, 2019.

The starting time for the Executive Session is scheduled for 5:30PM. The length of the executive session is being determined, and that will determine the starting time for the public session. It could be 6:00PM, 6:30PM, 7:00PM.

Monitor the Agenda on the District's website for more information. The Agenda will be published on Thursday, August 1.

Go to www.richland2.org
At the upper right, click on EXPLORE
Then click on School Board
Then click on Agenda
Under Meetings, click on Regular Business Meeting (wording might change for this Special meeting)
Note the time for the start of the public session
Click on View the Agenda

At the July 23rd Board meeting, the Agenda for the "next" Board meeting was discussed and approved. They considered the "next" Board meeting to be the one on August 13.

The superintendent and the Board knew that the "next" Board meeting would be in two weeks on August 6. Why didn't they discuss the Agenda for that meeting?

There is this little thing called Transparency.

Could R2 have a bonding problem?

A local newspaper, The Independent Voice of Blythewood & Fairfield County, published an article on July 18 about a recently-appointed Fairfield County magistrate, whose bond application was denied by that county's bond insurer due to the new magistrate's credit.

That new magistrate quickly secured a bond independently and provided it to the county.

This caused me to wonder whether school board members must be bonded. I'm rather sure that they must, because their fiduciary responsibility is high.

If a school board trustee has credit problems that include foreclosure action and an unsatisfied judgment in a significant amount, would that cause a bonding company to cancel any bond that had been issued?

It's the School District that should require Trustees to be bonded.

Of course, if the person to be bonded is not actually a legal trustee, that will present its own problem for the bonding company.

Special Education and IEPs

Do you have a student in Special Education? Or know of one?

There is a wealth of information available to you in the publications available from www.WrightsLaw.com

One excellent book is From Emotions to Advocacy. In this book you can learn basic and advanced tools to help you understand IEPs and how to deal with teachers and administrators in special education.

If you would like to borrow my copy of this book (I'm stingier than the library. Two-week loans. Pay for it if not returned on time), contact me.

I gave away my copy before moving to Columbia in 2014. I purchased the book again when the family of a student at Spring Valley HS asked for help. Their son was about to be expelled for the fourth time.

My showing up with the parents saved his bacon.

And soon after, Spring Valley made a fifth attempt to expel him. I attended the hearing with his parents again.

Not only did the effort to expel him fail, but a top administrator told the IEP Team at the end of the meeting, "You can't do what you are doing."

The first good rule for parents is Never Go to an IEP Alone.

Always take someone with you. Take an advocate or a family member or a neighbor or a friend - somebody to observe (and keep the team honest).

Got questions about Special Ed and IEPs. Ask them in the Comments section below.

Want them kicked off?

During the public participation segment of last night's board meeting, I repeated a question that I had been asked by a Richland County Sheriff's Department investigator on March 20, 2019. I had gone to the sheriff's department to read a report filed against me for harassment. The report was filed the previous day by Teresa Holmes.

After I read the report, I pointed out to the sergeant-investigator and his boss the many false statements in the report. (The boss quickly determined that I had done nothing wrong.)

At one point the investigator asked me, in a rather forceful tone, if I wanted Amelia McKie and Teresa Holmes "kicked off the board" (his words)..

It felt to me like the investigator was baiting me and expecting a reaction, but he didn't get it.

I paused and calmly told him that I did not; i.e., I did not want them "kicked off the board". I told him that what I wanted was for them to take the oath of office and become legal members of the board.

Keep in mind - this was five months ago. And they still have not taken the oath of office legally.

When I repeated his question at last night's board meeting, it appeared to shock Teresa Holmes. And Mr. Manning, Board Chair, cautioned me not to mention any Board member names in my remarks. I think my response to the investigator's question was lost. I had said "I still do", and I repeated "I still do", meaning that I still do want them to take the oath of office and become legal members of the board.

Last night - a first

Somewhere before the end of the first thirty minutes of last night's school board meeting, Amelia McKie must have excused herself, because I noticed the gap to Lindsay Agostini's left. And, from where I was sitting, it looked like her chair was gone, too, although her nameplate remained on the desk. I didn't notice exactly when she left, but it was shortly after the meeting reached Item 12 on the Agenda. [EDIT. When the YouTube video for this meeting became available, McKie's chair could be seen; it was pushed back and turned sideways behind Holmes' chair, so that it wasn't visible to the right side of the room. She left the meeting at 28:55 on the timer and had apparently pre-arranged her departure. 7/25/19 10:30AM]

It seems to me that there should have been some comment made by the Board Chair to excuse her from the meeting. The meeting began with seven present, plus the superintendent. When McKie left, there were still six. The Minutes of the meeting should reflect her departure and the time.

The question from the public should be, "Where was Amelia McKie?"

To do business, a quorum is required, and a quorum for the Richland 2 School Board is five.

Considering that McKie and Holmes are not official, legal members of the Board, not ever having legally* taken the oath of office, a quorum of five means that Agostini, Manning, Shadd, Caution-Parker and Elkins-Johnson must be there. If all five are not present, business must stop. If McKie or Holmes is not present, it doesn't matter.

So later, when Dr. Elkins-Johnson left the room briefly, a quorum was not present, and the business part of the meeting should have stopped. Without a Parliamentarian to remind them of the rules, how would they know that? The superintendent should know the rules and should prompt the Board Chair, if needed.

* McKie and Holmes took the oath of office on November 13, 2018, but they did so illegally. Each became eligible to take the oath on December 4, 2018 but has never taken it legally. Thus, they are not legal Board members and will not be, until they do take the oath of office.